Place: Taco Cabana
Lunch: 3 tacos (no tomato), tortilla soup, water with lime
My birthday weekend usually means a trip to the Twin Cities International Auto Show...but for some reason they've scheduled a couple of weeks later in the year than usual.
So I decided to go south instead.
As fate would have it, the Oklahoma City International Auto Show is happening this weekend. Weird coincidence, huh. I wish I knew about this yesterday...I would have gone Friday afternoon and avoided the big crowds.
Oh well.
OKC holds theirs on the state fairgrounds in three buildings. You buy your ticket and they stamp your hand so you can cross the three buildings at will. Parking is abundant and free, unlike Minneapolis.
The first building I entered was 2/3 GM product, the highlight of which was a red Camaro that was fully accessible. You could sit in it and everything. People were crowded around it. I found this sort of ironic because I remember the Twin Cities Auto Show back when the New Beetle first came out, and the last "new" Camaro was being launched. The Camaro was on a pedestal with a model who was standing there doing her sales pitch to an audience of ZERO because everybody was crowded around a nearby New Beetle. I may even have a picture of that.
Anyway, it's slick. It sits low and has a very retro feel to the instrument panel.
I also sat in an Escalade and immediately broke it. It has these cheap plastic tabs you push to open storage compartments. Well I put my finger on the top of it and attemtped to slide it back, and it popped right off.
Oops.
(It also snapped right back on, but the cheapness of it was immediately apparent. HOW much do they charge for these things?!?)
The disappointment in the GM stand was the absence of the forthcoming new Equinox and its GMC sister. They didn't even bother showing the old Equinox either. Isn't this what everybody wants? Smaller SUV's? If GM can't even comprehend something that simple, it's no wonder the viability of the company as a whole is questioned.
Mazda, Hyundai, and Toyota were also in here and had nothing notable. There wasn't a whole lot of new anything from anybody, really. I did sit in a Prius and kind of chuckled at its cute little dash-mounted shifter.
There was a race car in a Texas Motor Speedway display. It was the Interstate Batteries car. I know nothing about racing, so I don't know who drives that one. They also had an authentic Eleanor. That drew a lot of attention.
The second building had the majority of manufacturers who bothered to appear (Audi was noticeably absent, among others.) The first one inside the door was Nissan. Nissan has pulled out of a lot of auto shows, which made their massive appearance here kind of strange. They had a LOT of cars here.
I sat in the Rogue. The only difference between it and mine was that it was clean.
Nissan has a coupe version of their Altima available now. This just might be the car that satisfies the Monte Carlo faithful. Except that the GM faithful would NEVER not buy a GM. There's going to be one giant mass suicide of rednecks when the government finally stops bailing out GM and lets them go out of business.
The new Z was here in a bright yellow. I loved the dash layout. If you want to feel low and fast, this might be the car. Some Guy walking past as I was sitting in it muttered that he wished they'd opened the hood. So I popped the hood. He jumped, looked at me and said "Well we'll just open it ourselves!" He and his buddy commented that it looked "really crowded in there" (big motor, little space).
The new Nissan Cube was here too. It's Nissan's attempt to capture the market Scion lost when they screwed up the next generation XB. It's...odd.
Next over was the Kia display. They had their own little weird take on the Scion XB, then some passenger car. Then I jumped into what I thought was the Sportage and was noticeably impressed with its upgraded interior. I was comparing it to Volkswagen's interiors...until I realized it WAS a Volkswagen. Kia had just TWO CARS here! Actually, one might have been a Mitsubishi. Anyway, I was in a Tiguan.
You might recall that it was the Tiguan I fell in love with last year and was considering along side the Rogue. I did eventually test drive it, but felt the Rogue better suited me (and the Rogue was WAY cheaper). After sitting in this Tiguan, I stand by that decision.
Behind the Tig was a New Beetle in a new color, and it was love at first sight. The color was called something like "Heaven Blue Metallic". It's a silvery blue similar to a color I used to see on old Beetles in Oregon years ago (a limited edition with blacked out trim instead of chrome), and it was my favorite color then. They also made a Rabbit with a similar color (then called "Frost Blue Metallic") in the early eighties.
I sat in the thing for like ten minutes. It had an all black leatherette interior. It was just awesome. It was like somebody was saying "We've built the dream car of your childhood. It's yours for the taking."
I almost called my VW salesman in Burnsville to tell him to "get me one NOW". Almost.
But I'd have to clear out the junk that inhabits the 2nd space in my garage, because I need the little SUV too. Or maybe I could compliment the Beetle with big ol' late model Touareg. Then I started thinking about how easy it is to change the oil and filters in the Nissan than in the cramped engine compartment in the Beetle. And how VW's require expensive proprietary fluids (even the stupid coolant). But if practicality triumphed over passion every time, the world would be a very boring place.
Then I dropped into a Rabbit coupe. It had a manual transmission. My clutch foot immediately woke from a year long slumber and popped on the clutch pedal. I SWEAR it was a reflex. And I shifted. I had to. I went through the entire shift pattern. It felt so good. It felt so right.
I miss you, clutch foot.
I walked through the rest of the building, but nothing stood out. Not even the orange Challenger. Then I moved to the third building, which was all Ford Lincoln-Mercury, the only American car maker who was good enough to say "We're fine, thanks" to the government in leiu of free money. In between these two buildings were a couple of fair food trailers that were open and selling fair food. Yes, you could get a big ol' genuine state fair corn dog at the auto show. How awesome is that.
The Ford Flex is pretty cool. A woman whose husband was wearing a shirt that said "I DO EVERYTHING THE VOICES IN MY WIFE'S HEAD TELL ME TO DO" advised me to check out the "white deluxe one". Indeed, it was quite fancy. These things look odd when you see them go by, but try one out anyway. They're pretty neat.
The Ford Explorer now has a shift knob that looks like a golf club shaft. Looks cool...feels kind of cheap.
The next Ford Taurus was on a turntable and got a lot of oohs and ahhs. It may have been the second most popular new car at the show, behind the Camaro.
I don't think I'll ever understand why people like the Ford Edge.
And so it goes. If you know anybody selling a home with a 12-car garage in my price range, I can probably make all my car dreams come true.
Until then, my clutch foot will probably be dreaming of Heaven Blue Metallic Beetles with manual transmissions.
